Researchers can now demonstrate that a short-lived change in the earth?s magnetic field really did take place about ten million years ago. Before this, they had evidence that the magnetic fields had reversed, but felt this could have been caused by chemical or physical processes that had altered the magnetic signals in the sediment they were studying.
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Did five people have to die because US biological weapon researchers wanted to receive more money for their work? Greenpeace magazine feels this dreadful assumption may be likely, based on statements from members of a U.S. government delegation.
During the UN bioweapons conference taking place at present in Geneva, the participants of the U.S. delegation said that a high-ranking U.S. biology weapons expert is behind the anthrax letters. Independent researchers also share this suspicion, Greenpeace magazine reported on Wednesday.
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It?s planting season in eastern Afghanistan, and farmers are busy plowing their fields for next year?s crop of poppies that will eventually be turned into heroin and shipped to the streets of the U.S. and Europe.
A few weeks ago, many farmers were planning to plant wheat. But now that the Taliban have gone, along with their ban on drugs, most of them have changed their mind, since poppies earn them 15 times more money.
?The Taliban told us not to cultivate poppies, so I stopped,? says a gray-bearded father of nine. ?Absolutely we were forced to stop, and we were sorry about this. I don?t especially like growing poppies, but I was worried about getting food for my stomach.?
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Researchers who are searching for evidence of water and organic compounds on Mars need to know how to recognize Martian life forms if Mars rocks are eventually brought back to Earth. Peter Buseck and Martha McCartney, of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, decided that clues can be found in bacteria here on Earth.
They were hired by NASA to develop reliable criteria for identifying traces of life, or ?biomarkers,? for use during future astrobiology missions. They decided that the study of organisms from Earth is the best way to start. Buseck says, ?If you find something in extraterrestrial samples that resembles life on Earth then it?s reasonable to think that you have found traces of life? on other planets.
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